


A Caricature of a Family

by parrotfish_elliot



Series: Caricature Series [3]
Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, its the funeral, thats it, theyre sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 17:45:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10813761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parrotfish_elliot/pseuds/parrotfish_elliot
Summary: A look into Whizzer Brown's funeral.





	A Caricature of a Family

This occurred in the midst of a season meant for joy. A season meant for the sunshine, laughter, and beach days. A season that he would have said is a picturesque depiction of the serendipity and beauty that only the camera lens can truly capture in the other seasons. A season with bright colors and patterns, not the plain black drab of a funeral.

Even so, they found themselves dressed to the nines in dreary, sad, vile clothes, clothes that he would never have allowed. He would never have allowed this. Any of this. He would never have allowed the scene around him to play out. 

See a troubled mother, heartbroken at the look on her son's face, deeply pained by the man in the ornate casket, and unable to pinpoint why. 

See an unusually dull-eyed caterer, sobbing into her lover's chest, terrified to look at the corpse for more than a moment, terrified to speak or breath for fear of breaking down. 

See a curly haired psychiatrist, holding his wife and stepson, trying to keep an air of togetherness for everyone around him, because that's his job, that's what he does, that's what he knows how to do.

See a wrecked doctor, hugging her lover against her chest and wishing she could have helped, wishing she could have fixed it, wishing there was something she could have done to erase the sickly look on his face. 

See a traumatized thirteen-year-old, clutching a chess piece in his hand, a king, a piece that tries to show everything he thought about the man, but never succeeds, because he wasn't a king, he was so much more, and now he's nothing. 

See a man, reduced to nothing without the love of his life, reduced to a shell. Not crying, no, shells don't cry. He hasn't cried for months. What good is he if he shows weakness?

And last, see the sharply dressed corpse, lying still, inanimate, dead. A parody of the man he once was. A mockery of all that used to surround him. The most tragic of burlesques of who he should be. He once was the cause of all their joy, but now the bringer of all their sorrow. 

Look. See these seven, living and dead, gathered in a building. Not a church, not a funeral home, but an apartment. He had asked for the funeral to be there, where they could actually remember him, and not just the color of the typical flowers and the typical smell of lavender air freshener. No, that’s not him at all. He’s the pictures hanging on clotheslines on every wall, he’s the lingering scent of burnt food, he’s the faux fur rug, he’s the brightly colored tiny flags in the tainted mason jar, he’s anything but typical. 

Don’t see the way his death made them all closer, don’t see the positive impacts caused by his absence, don’t see the tears slipping down the ex-wife’s face. No, no, focus in on the tiny things, on the now, on the man in the casket, not the dismangled caricature of a family looking on.

**Author's Note:**

> whoops that was sad  
> five tony nominations!!!  
> happy again


End file.
